


Religion

by sentimental_boy



Series: Matt Murdock imagines [15]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Matt is, Reader is NOT religious, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 10:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5087788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimental_boy/pseuds/sentimental_boy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this because I'm self indulgent trash. The reader is not religious and explains why to Matt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Religion

**Author's Note:**

> The things that she talks about (Mostly sexism) actually happened, so I'm not making them up to shit on religion. If you're going to be offended by the main charachter having clear opinions on these things, don't read it. I realize that not all christians act like this. So if you're a christian and not like this, I'm not saying that you are or chrisianity as a whole is. Just an organization that actually treats people this way.

You’re sitting in Matt’s bed, watching him as he gets dressed for church.

“Do you want to come with me?”

At the question, your stomach sinks. You eye the dress in your closet like it might jump out and wind itself around your neck any minute. It was something your parents bought you for church years back, and you'd kept it in case of a date or formal event. You wore it to a friend’s wedding once, but it's only been collecting dust since then. You know how important religion is to Matt, but you can’t bring yourself to be okay with it. The way your family presented it to you when you were growing up turned you off to it. For a while even the mention of it gave you a bout of anxiety, but you've gotten over it for the most part. Now you're you're just nervous because he's religious. Not that you have anything against it. It's just that most 'Christians' you've met have had a bigot waiting under the surface. You like him a lot and don't want him to turn out like the type of professed Christian you're used to.

“Not today Matt. I’ll see you when you get home.”

He stops tying his tie for the moment and you can see the wheels turning in his head. You know he’s using his senses to analyze you, you’d recognize that face anywhere. His brows furrow together as he listens to your heartbeat. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just don’t want to go to church.”

“I believe you; your heartbeat speeds up a little whenever I’ve mentioned it in the past.”

You sigh. “Yeah. The household I grew up in was very religious and it left a bad taste in my mouth.”

“What about it bothers you?”

“Are you trying to convert me Matthew? Because if I can withstand my entire family, and virtually everyone I knew growing up, I don’t think it’s going to work.” You try to lend a light tone to your voice.

“No, I just want to know. I mean, if something is so bad gives you mild anxiety, it makes me wonder what I’m not seeing.” He sits on the edge of the bed next to you.

Well you thought you'd gotten over your anxiety about it. You almost start talking before you decide against it. "We can talk about it later. You’re going to be late.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go on.” You lean forward and kiss him.

“Alright. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

-0-

When Matt gets home, he sticks something in the fridge before he finds you on the sofa and sits next to you. “Hi.”

“Hey.” You say as you lean in and kiss him. "What'd you get?" You ask when you part.

"Just a little something for later."

"Okay." You lean back against the sofa and start scrolling through the internet again.

“So, about this morning.”

You sigh. “I was hoping you forgot.”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to- not right now- but I’d like to know why you have an issue with it.”

You think about it for a moment. He should know, considering how religious he is. If you remember correctly, being with an unbeliever is kind of a deal breaker. Or is was in your congregation anyway. Besides, it’s why you’re so hesitant in your relationships. You’ve never dated anyone so religious, so you’re even more cautious with him. “I guess you should should know since it has to do with my commitment issues.”

When you don’t start talking, he uses his senses to feel you out. He hears your strangled breathing, and puts a hand on your thigh to calm you.

You take a deep breath and decide to dive in. “Alright, so where it says that the head of the woman is the man and the head of man is Christ. Like why isn’t Jesus just the head of people, why do women need men to lead them?”

“Okay, I guess that's true. But does that really happen? ”

“Not always, but often in the religion I grew up around, we would get preached to about it. I just hated hearing the old men talking down to me from the platform and trying to put me in my place. It made me feel like shit.”

He sighs, trying to put himself in your shoes. “So what, was it like every other Sunday?”

“We had meetings three times a week for a long time. That’s not counting our biyearly two to three day assemblies. Later the meetings got cut down to two Nights a week to make room for ‘family worship.' With all that, you see how the information would get repeated to a point where it’s just ridiculous. And then this 'family worship' would be where my family would sit in the living room and use the bible as a club. And I wasn't a bad kid, but they would always find something.”

“That’s intense, but I understand what being beat with the bible is like."

“Yeah, but there’s more to my issues with the whole headship thing. It wasn't just that scripture that bothered me. It says somewhere that divorce is a sin against god unless your significant other cheats on you. That means that in the case of abuse you can separate, but not get divorced. Or if your husband is controlling, you're expected to stay with him and wait for God to take care of it."

"Okay, but later on it says that the man should love her. Obviously he’s not supposed to be overbearing.”

"Yeah, that's what people have always told me. It doesn't change the fact that some guys are still going to be. I mean, that was god’s curse, right? Something about how she’ll long for her husband and he would dominate her. Not to mention the birth pains. Like what the fuck man? He curses the ground so the man will have a hard day at work then unleashes all hell on the woman? They both sinned."

He takes a breath. "That's true, but she initiated it."

“Did you seriously just say that she started it? Implying that if this whole thing is true, then all women deserved to be punished for what she did? Do you think we should be punished for the wrongs our parents committed?”

He shakes his head, trying to stay calm. He has to remind himself that, just from the little bit you’ve told him, this is what people made you believe as you grew up. He takes your hands. “That’s not what I said. Okay? I’m sorry, that wasn’t the right response.”

You eye him before you let out a breath. "I’m sorry if I’m coming off as a little crazy about all this. It’s just that I heard all these things taught and repeated for my entire childhood. To add to it, women couldn’t pray in the presence of a man unless she had a head covering. Even then we were supposed to avoid it. I didn’t know what I believed- I don’t even think I understood the concept of god. When you’re a kid though, you trust the adults around you. When everyone tells you ‘this is the truth’ it’s hard to argue even when you get older and know better.”

He nods. “Yeah. I think I’d have issues too if I grew up hearing that stuff. You know there are women pastors though. Right? Not all religions are like that.”

“Maybe not, but it’s a controversial issue. The general consensus seems to be that it’s not biblical. And what’s the point in religion if you’re cherry picking?”

“I guess it's different being a girl in religion."

"Yes. Very. That was part of it too. I could feel all my male peers gaining their egos and looking down on me as an old guy, not only told them that it’s okay, but that that's how it should be."

He puts an arm around you. "I'm sorry it was presented in such a gross way.” He listens to your pounding heart. He can tell talking about all this is opening up thing’s you’ve kept at bay for a long time. He can almost feel the worthlessness, and anger, coming out from the locked chamber in your heart and clawing their way up your throat. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to.” He tightens his grip on you.

You breathe in and out a few times, trying to bring yourself down. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’d rather tell you now, while we’re already on the topic.”

He nods, waiting for you to continue. When you don’t say anything, he decides to move the conversation along with caution. “Before I left this morning, you mentioned that everyone you knew growing up was part of that religion. But you knew other people who weren't, right?"

“There were teachers and schoolmates but my mom made sure I didn't hang out with them outside of school. I had an aunt, but she lived 500 miles away. Then my closest friend’s dad started being abusive. Her mom got less strict because of what she was dealing with. My mom didn’t let hang out with her because she didn’t like how she was dressing or the music she was listening to.”

“Are you serious?” He raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah. My only real exposure to anything else was in the form of storytelling. TV, movies, books, then the internet when I was a teenager.” You almost snort. “And she used to tell me that keeping me separate from everyone else was ‘to keep me from falling out of the truth.' That didn't work so well for her.”

“I’m just in awe that you turned out so confident and strong with the influences you had.”

“Oh, my mom was strong. She just acted like it was so wrong that she was, like she hated herself for it. She was a big part of the problem because she was one of the stricter ‘Christians.' I still have problems with fundamentals in the bible though.”

“Like what? Other than the sexism.”

“When I started getting older I started questioning why homosexuality was ‘wrong.' Their only support is that god puts ‘men who lie with men’ in the same category with murders. I think that’s when I was sure I didn’t want it. I couldn’t be a part of something that condemned a whole group of people because ‘it’s not natural.'”

“Okay, that’s understandable. I have a hard time with that too. Can I tell you what puts my mind to rest about that though?"

"Go ahead."

"So, I know it says that, but it also says that god is love; I believe that. I can’t see how god could condemn someone for something they can’t control. When it comes down to it, the bible, though inspired of God, was written by men. It’s also been translated many different times by biased men. There’s nothing to prove that we even have all the texts. Who knows what’s gotten lost, or mistranslated, or inserted. The churches just go off of what's there, and often it's not in the most loving of ways. It doesn't make it okay, but some congregations are good about it.”

You don’t really have anything to say to that, so you just nod, knowing his radar sense will pick up on it.

“Okay, so talk to me. Back to what you were saying about the headship issue. I get that what they were saying was gone about all wrong and having that as a constant could not have been a positive thing. Did your family live by it though?”

“In some ways. My mom did a lot of things because my dad didn’t know how. Like I said though, I she hated that she had to. She was always fighting with the balance of the submissive wife they told her to be, and the mother who needed to call the shots if anything was going to get done. I think that’s why she’d tell me all sorts of shit. She was just repeating what she heard, back to me, through her own self loathing.”

“What would she tell you?”

You sigh, thinking of where to start. “She’d say things like: ‘you have to learn to cook so you can cook for your husband when you get married.' Or she’d quote the scripture where it says that women are the weaker sex. When I was a teenager, I saw all the injustice against women I started talking about it. I called myself a feminist, and my mom jumped down my throat and told me not to say that word. I responded by telling her that I believe in equality and there was nothing she could do to change that. She didn’t respond. When I was talking about women’s rights another time she said- and I quote: 'I'm so sorry for whatever I've done to make you feel that way.' And she wasn't apologizing for making me feel weak, or like being a girl was a bad thing. No, she was apologizing because she thinks she raised me to be too strong."

He clenches his jaw and his hand twitches where it’s resting on your shoulder. “When you talk to her now does she still say stuff like that?”

“Not as much. We’ve had enough arguments about it that we’ve agreed to disagree. Almost. When the opportunity presents itself she’ll still throw in a comment. I think she's hoping it will make me ‘come to my senses.'”

He shakes his head. "I think it might be a good thing that you didn't want me to meet your family when I asked last week."

"Yeah, I don't think either of us are ready for that one. Anyway, I might as well be dead to them since I'm not part of their religion."

“That’s ridiculous.”

“But here we are." You sit in his arms for a minute before you start ranting again. "Then one time I was at this anniversary party and they were doing a version of the newlywed game. One of the questions was ‘what’s the best quality in a wife.' I guess The question was asking for shit to go down. As you’d expect, the answers the men gave were: silence, cooking, cleaning.”

“As you’d expect?” He shakes his head. “When I was growing up, before my dad died, he never thought of women like that. I know his answer would’ve been strong, supportive, loving. Those people were idiots. You know that the bible doesn’t say that though, right?”

“Maybe not that specifically, but that brings me to what happened next. There was another question asking who's more dependent on the other. This guy said that the ‘christian’ way is for wives to be more dependent on their husband. He got some shit for it, but it didn’t stop him later when he said that wives should call their husbands lord. I know they were joking, and I know sexism exists outside of religion, but they’ve always gone hand in hand for me. My whole life the bible has always been used to validate sexism. What the one guy said about women calling their husbands lord, that actually does happen at one point in the bible.”

Matt sighs. “Yeah, that’s not right. I know Sarah did call Abraham lord, but that wasn't a religious thing. It was more of a cultural thing in that time period. I think that’s also where a lot of people bring sexism in where it’s not a commandment or principle. That’s how things were in that region, back then. It doesn’t mean it’s okay, and it’s not how people should treat women now.”

You nod again, absorbing his view on the matter. It’s a fresh perspective that helps put your mind at ease about him. You’ve known that he’s a great guy for a while, but there were still fears in the back of your mind.

“And I understand.” He continues. “Not what it’s like of course, but why you’ve come to the conclusions you have. Their view on all this is so skewed, and it’s wrong that they claim to represent God while treating you like that. I want you to know that I don’t share their views. I can’t even imagine saying something like that or thinking it was funny.”

“Matt, I didn’t mean to imply anything about you.” He hears your heartbeat quicken as you rush to straighten that out.

“I didn’t think you did. But if I grew up hearing shit like that, I would want reassurance that whoever I was with didn’t think like that. Especially if that person was religious.”

You let out a quiet sigh of relief. “Thank you for understanding.”

He gives you a small smile. “I won’t ask you to come to church with me again. I mean, if you ever wanted to, I’d be happy to bring you along, but I don’t want you to feel pressured at all by me. If you ever decided to give it a shot, I would want it to be your decision.”

“Thanks Matt.” You pause. “So this isn’t going to be an issue?”

“No. Why would it be?”

“I know everyone who’s religious isn’t like them. But I still had this fear that when you learned that chances are, I'll never be religious, you’d call this off.”

“What? Like break up with you? God no. No. My grandmother was the real catholic anyway. Like you said, it’s presented at such a young, impressionable age, and I’ve come to rely on my faith. It does put me in a difficult position though, doing what I do as Daredevil.”

You nod and run your hands along his chest. “Thank you for hearing me out and not acting like I’m crazy.”

“Of course. I can’t even express to you how not crazy you are.” He runs his hand along your arm. “And y/n?”

“Hmmm?

“I promise I’ll never treat you how they did.”

“I think you told me that earlier.” You let a soft smile rest on your face as you look up at him.

“I know, but I figured you could hear it again. When we started this conversation, you did preface it by saying that all this was the root of your commitment issues. I want you to know that you don’t have to be afraid.”

You crawl into his lap and let out a shaky breath as you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into a proper hug. He reciprocates with comforting hands running along your back. After a good five minutes like that, he can tell by your breathing you’re still trying to calm yourself down.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m craving something sweet.”

“And alcoholic.” You add.

He chuckles. “Well, lucky for you, I got some tipsy scoop while I was out.”

“You didn’t.”

He shrugs. “I had a feeling this conversation might not uh, lift our spirits?” He tilts his head to the side with that grin of his. “I figured alcoholic ice cream would be a good way to end the night regardless.” He pats your hips so you’ll move and he can stand. He goes to the kitchen and returns with two styrofoam cups and plastic spoons.

You hum in appreciation at the first bite. As the minutes pass, even the cup of frozen sunshine in your hands can’t distract you from those three little words you’ve been so afraid of. You look over at Matt, and you can’t stop your emotions from bubbling over at the mere sight of him. It's not like he's doing anything spectacular; he's just sitting there eating. But after tonight, it's enough. Everything he assured you of tonight is only proof that he’s as good of a man, and better than you ever thought he was. You have half a mind to vault yourself across the sofa and confess your feelings right then and there, but you decide you need more time.

-0-

A few hours later you’re snuggled up against Matt, your hand resting on his bare chest. Matt has his arm tucked under you, holding you close as he listens to your heart. It’s become a habit of his since you started living together. At this point, he doesn’t remember how he ever drown out the noises of the city without its steady rhythm lulling him to sleep. Tonight was different though. He could tell you were thinking- way too much it would seem- but you wanted to keep whatever it was under wraps if your even, but forced breathing is anything to go by. He want’s to know what’s bothering you, but he also doesn’t want to pry since you’re trying to sort this out on your own first. He’s still trying to discern exactly what this particular skipping rhythm of your heart means, when you speak his name is a quiet murmur.

“Yeah?” He runs his hand along your arm in hopes of calming you enough to open up again.

“I- I um.” You stop, gather yourself, then continue with a resolve. “I love you.”

You can just barely see the contours of his face with the (now blue) light of the billboard shining through the apartment and into his room. It’s enough though. You can see the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkle and his lips turn up in that grin of his. You can see him struggling to control it, but it only grows. “I love you too.” He slips his arm out from under you before moving to hover over you. He leans down and grabs your face with the hand that’s not supporting his weight as he presses his lips to yours. “God, I love you so much.”

You smile into the kiss and Matt thinks he could die happy right now. Because this- this right here- is the closest thing he’ll ever get to seeing your smile. And he can’t get enough of it.


End file.
